What got into you nut bars yesterday? The comments section was full of insanity. This is a sane, sober, and rational weblog and I expect you all will act accordingly. Now, stop stealing each others’ passwords and posting drivel.

Please use your real name to post drivel, like the jealous guy from that one blog.

Right, on to the news. Lesseee… uhh… did you guys hear about the Champions League draw yet? Some guy fondled a bowl full of balls and made a pretty awesome draw, I think.

First, Arsenal have the return leg advantage all the way to the final, meaning that a single away goal in the first leg of both matches makes their job super easy when they return to the Emirates for the second leg.

Second, in the next round they got matched with Villreal, the 4th place team in la Liga, who’s key players are a 62 year old future MLS star named Robert Pires and former Arsenal whipping boy and YouTube star Pascal Cygan.

Third, Porto is going to do the hard work and knock Manchest Untied out of the competition and Arsenal are going to face Porto in the semi-finals which will be a chance for Arsenal to get revenge over the last team to beat Arsenal (Roma doesn’t count).

Fourth, Liverpool drew Chelsea and Barcelona drew Bear Munching and that means that Liverpool and Chelsea will beat each other to death clearing the way for Barcelona to sweep their group and setting up a finale between Arsenal and Barcelona where we will get revenge over Thierry Henry for leaving us!

Hmmmm… 2-1 over Barcelona, Henry scores an own goal, E’to’o’ gains another apostrophe, and sad Barcelona fans start talking about buying up 3/4 of the Arsenal squad…

What else is going on?

Oh yeah, Arsenal are playing Newcastle tomorrow and I have good news and bad news. The good news is that Joey Barton will not be fit to take the pitch. The bad news is that Steven Taylor is in the team and picking up hints from super-c*nts Kevin Nolan and Nicky Butt — who are also available.

What the hell kind of team is Newcastle putting together? Kevin Nolan, Joey Barton, Nikki Butts, AND Steven Taylor? On the same fucking team? Isn’t there a law against that? Who passes the ball? I mean, does anyone in that midfield pass or do they just tackle each other to move the ball around?

I’m kinda happy that Cesc isn’t fit, I’d much rather Denilson soak up the tackles than Fabregas. Speaking of, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see the 4-5-1 (or 4-2-3-1, whatever) with both Denilson and Song in along with Diaby in the midfield, those three have been showing a lot of steel lately and facing this pack of c*nthounds we’re going to need all the steel we can get.

After the Blackburn match, Arshavin made a remark about how they were the hardest tackling team he’d ever played against. He’s in for a surprise tomorrow because if he thought Blackburn are hard tackling, then Kevin Nolan, Steven Taylor, and Nikkiz Buttz are going to be like a gang of goats raping his family.

Or something.

Anyway, for our part, young Theo picked up an injury. This injury happened, not during training, but AFTER training, while WALKING. The dot com is saying that his knee locked up after the training session when he was walking back to the showers. Amazing. Damnit Wenger, why can’t you keep the boys healthy? Stop killing them by letting them walk back from training! They clearly need one of those motorized things that fat people in America go grocery shopping with.

Right, tomorrow’s match is live on Fox Soccer Channel at 10:30 am PST which means I’ll be liveblogging, so stop by if you want to hear me rant and rave about fat Americans and Kevin Nolan in real time.

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Really Favorable UCL draw. Id love to see Porto Knock off those bloody Manc’s but I’m not worried if United do get through to us by then we will have a full strength squad (knock Wood) and we can put them down …AGAIN like earlier this season

Alas Porto knocking out the Mancs is wishful thinking. I believe we all know that in the back of our minds. Surely I would call up their manager personally and congratulate him if they did. I don’t fear the Mancs because we’ve shown over the years that no matter who is on our team, we’ve been able to match them and have even done doubles over them.

Also Liverpool/Chelsea…….again………….for the fourth time in 5 years. The odds of that are astronomical and I think much of these draws are staged in one way or another.

Who can’t be delighted with that CL draw? If we don’t stuff Villareal then we shouldn’t be there. Yes, then a chance to stick Manure all over the pitch and watch Fab and Rooney in a pizza face-off for afters…
My preferred team for the CL semi:
Alumnia, Sagna, Toure (captain), Gallas, Clichy (but Gibbs has been outstanding and Clichy needs to work on his crosses), Walcott (IF he doesn’t get yet another injury), Fab, Song (who has been playing so well of late), Nasri, Dudu, van P. Bench: Eboue, Diaby, Gibbs, Djourou, Bendtner.
We’ll need luck but most of all we need to be passionate and organised. I feel in my waters that this is our year!

We have the home advantage of the second leg on both the quarters and semi’s so I’ve already put a 7/1 bet on Arsenal winning the champions league, I only see Liverpool as a threat and there’s no possibility of meeting them until the final.

That would be a brilliant final. Although Barcelona would be an interesting one, I think Henry went at just the right time to get a good price for him and I don’t think it would be too bad to lose against them if he scored the winning goal, I’d say it would be a pyrric victory for him if that did happen, I can’t see him celebrating too hard, unless he got stick from the Arsenal fans. I wonder if Hleb would get some game time in that match.

Lanesra, while I like most of your choices for team, I’d place consistent performer Denilson in the squad in place of the Diaby, because on a bad day Diaby is invisible, Denilson has earned his place in the squad. I’d start him in place of Song too.

The problem is Fab has been out for so long it’s hard to tell who will play best alongside him when he comes back. The team has had to learn to play without him and to be honest they’ve just gotten to the point where they figured out how, the problems at the start of the season where (in my opinion) due to the fact that everything had to go through fab, nobody else had to do anything but get the ball to him and teams figured out how neutralize him as a threat. Since he’s been out everyone in midfield has had to do their share of creating chances and if we can keep that way of playing and add fab’s ingenuity to the mix we’ll be unstoppable.

I would start Bendtner ahead of Eduardo too, his power, pace and presence have been game winners for us even in matches where he’s failed to score, I think Dudu would make an excellent impact sub, plus his partner ship with Vela means I’d put him in, in place of djourou, Song can slot into the CB position if needed.

I think they’re all three consistently inconsistent, but Song and Diaby are playing much better than Denilson right now. Diaby has had a couple of monster games in the last week. So much so that he got the France call up, over Vieira.

There’s simply no denying this is the mother of all perfect draws for Arsenal. It’s still unlikely we win it but this draw can only help us and hurt the others. The resurgent chels and unstoppable in europe pool will exhaust each other, porto has a history as a mancs nemesis, we have a fine record against portuguese teams, the road immediately ahead looks very inviting. I’m not going to jinx us any further than that.

I would pair rvp and eduardo up front, we need some composure in our strikers in these next games, and these guys just have to score.
As for theos injury, having some experience with meniscus injuries, if i read correctly this will either be a minor or major problem, not much middle ground here, either he’s back in a week or it could be invasive surgery and months, as he adds an extra dimension to attack this is not what we needed. Also, eventhough i’m still not excited about our midfield options i would pair diaby and song in cm, they seem to be in the best form right now, if either underperforms sub in denilson.

Villareal’s a pretty good side, but at least they’re not English. For some reason, I’m really nervous about us facing English sides. They know we’re crap. I think the rest of Europe still respects us. And if you ever bump into Gerrard, let him know that you fry ice-cream by covering the ice-cream ball with a batter made of bread crumbs, and then freezing it, and than frying it for a few seconds. You’re really only frying the batter/bread crumbs, and the ice-cream stays cold.

Manuel We get it there’s another team called Arsenal in Argentina. They Dont have the same players and dont play in the UCL. They Have a crappy Logo and seem to have never had any major accolades. They Wear stupid light blue strips and have 2 whole international players and are sitting in eighth place. Any other fun fact Manuel.